Speelman on Chess

The FIDE World Cup is scheduled to come to its climax today in Khanty-Mansiysk in Siberia, with (unless one has already crushed the other in three games) the concluding fourth game of the final between Alexei Shirov and Gata Kamsky. Battle commences at 10am London time and there are worse (if perhaps more sociable) ways of spending the early part of today than watching online at the official site ugra-chess.ru/eng/main_e.htm; or at one remove at places including the ICC www.chessclub.com or Chessbase's Playchess site, playchess.com.

These events develop at a terrific pace for spectators, let alone those actually involved and it was just 18 days (six rounds of two games followed if necessary by play-offs) from when 128 players sat down at the beginning of the first round on 24 November to the semi-final play-offs last Tuesday, 11 November. The first rest day in the hectic process was on Wednesday - the day before the start of the final. But of course players did make rest days for themselves by winning their matches without recourse to play-offs and Shirov in particular was extremely adept at this, winning all his first five matches in two days before a tough play-off against Sergey Karjakin.

I left you last week with the quarter-finals about to get under way between Evgeny Alekseev and Karjakin, Shirov and Dmitri Jakovenko, Kamsky and Ruslan Ponomariov; and Magnus Carlsen and Ivan Cheparinov. Three of these were decided in two days as Shirov, Kamsky and Carlsen went through with only the Alekseev v Karjakin match going to play-offs in which Karjakin won the second game impressively - see below.

So the semis pitted Shirov v Karjakin and Carlsen v Kamsky. In the former, the two regular games were drawn relatively harmlessly before Shirov dominated the play-offs, torturing his opponent first with rook and bishop v two knights (without pawns) and then winning in fine style in an ending with rooks and opposite coloured bishops. The 'R+B v NN' ending is especially interesting theoretically, since endgame databases have established that the longest forced winning sequence is immense: apparently it's 223 moves until you win material! There was a time when purists lobbied for games to continue not for the regulation 50 moves but up to the established limit in such endings. Happily that initiative has been repulsed. Not only would players have to sit for many hours defending but they are in any case almost totally incomprehensible to us poor Carbon based life forms without Silicon assistance. In the event, Shirov tried for about 45 moves and then exchanged into 'R v N' which he pursued for another 10 moves before finally acceding to the draw.

Meanwhile, Kamsky was extremely impressive against Carlsen, drawing with ease as Black and then outplaying the young Norwegian as White. While he is certainly one of the world's most talented players and one of the most determined, Kamsky did have a hiatus of nearly a decade from 1996 until June 2004 in which he first studied medicine for a year and then shifted to law school from which he graduated. The understandable rust which he exhibited on his return - first in small tournaments in New York City and then on a wider stage - has long since departed: but the legacy of his long lay-off remains in a relatively weak opening repertoire, as compared to other supergrandmasters and I had expected Carlsen to defeat him and make Shirov the favourite for the same reason.

We shall see. The result of game one appears at the end of the column and by the time you read this they will already be at the critical stage.

10...0-0 11 0-0-0 Qc7 12 Kb1 b5 13 g5 Nh5 14 f4 The position is still highly theoretical indeed I found over 100 examples games in a database of recent games. However, 14 f4 is relatively new and uncommon instead 14 Nd5 is normally played.

14...exf4 15 Bxf4 Nxf4 16 Qxf4 Rac8 17 Nd4 Nb6 18 Bd3 Qc5 19 Nf5 The first new move and apparently a good one. In a game Grischuk v Areshchenko in Hungary last year (which was undoubtedly well known to both parties) White played 19 Nd5 and it ended in a draw in just four more moves: 19...Nxd5 20 exd5 Bxd5 21 Nf5 Rce8 22 Nxe7+ Rxe7 23 Bxh7+ Kxh7.

19...Rce8? It's always hard to respond to a novelty, especially in a rapidplay game and this is already a serious mistake. Alekseev should either have played the other rook to e8 or perhaps retreated 19...Bd8.

20 Nxe7+ Rxe7 21 e5! d5 Necessary to prevent Ne4. If 21...Qxe5 22 Qh4 g6 23 Rhe1 Qh8 24 Ne4 Nd7 White has a massive attack (the queen didn't go to g7 so that if 25 Nf6+ Black can take it though it's very grim anyway).

22 h4 Nc4 If Black had played 19...Rfe8 then the rook would have been on c8 rather than f8 so that the threat of ...Nxb2 would force 23 Bxc4 which admittedly is still clearly better for White.

23 h5 d4

Evgeny Alekseev (Black)

Sergey Karjakin (White to play)

24 h6! Time is of the essence in such positions. If now 24...Qxe5 25 Bxh7+! Kxh7 26 hxg7+ Kxg7 27 Qh4 the attack crashes through after 27...Rc8 (or 27...Bf5 28 Qh6+ Kg8 29 Nd5 Bxc2+ 30 Ka1 f5 31 gxf6 etc) 27...Rc8 28 Qh6+ Kg8 and now the splendid 29 Qf6!! Qxf6 30 exf6 wins material. Black must spend a tempo against the threat of Rdg1+ and Rh8 mate and after either 30...Ne5 or 30...Bf5 31 fxe7 the d pawn is pinned since it prevents Rd8+.

25 Nd5!! Qxd5 Of course if 25...Bxd5 26 Qf6 the bishop blocks the defence ...Qxe5 so White wins on the spot. 25....Na3+ also doesn't help after 26 Kc1! (but not 26 Ka1?? Qxd5 when the threat of ...Qxa2 mate wins for Black).